National Association of School Psychologists tagged posts

John Kelly, PhD, PresidentNational Association of School Psychologists

In addition to providing the organization’s statement (see below) following the February 14, 2018, attack at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, National Association for School Psychologists President John Kelly, PhD, answered several questions from Care for Your Mind.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) joins the nation in shock and grief over the shooting in Parkland, Florida. Incidents of mass violence like this are far too common, and we need to do more as a nation to address the underlying causes. This includes addressing our broken mental health system and examining our existing—and the potential for more effective—gun legislation.

Last week, Kelly Vaillancourt provided an easy way for you to advocate to members of Congress about providing mental health services in schools. Now, she offers some ideas about how you can effectively interact with local and state officials in order to make meaningful and substantial progress toward increasing access to comprehensive mental health services. Dr. Vaillancourt is director of government relations at the National Association of School Psychologists, which represents over 25,000 school psychologists. These professionals work with students, educators, administrators, and families to support the academic achievement, positive behavior, and mental health of all students, especially those who struggle with barriers to learning. Your voice is critical in helping ensure that all children, youth, and adults have access to the mental and behavioral health services they need and there are many quick and easy ways that you can be an effective advocate. Here, we focus on the ways you can educate and advocate at the local and state levels.

Educate School Boards about Comprehensive Mental Health Supports

Identify your local school board members. Review facts about them including involvement in education and with other community organizations. Furthermore, educate yourself on the jurisdiction the school board has over local policy and budget decisions as this can vary across districts and states.

Recently on Care for Your Mind, Dr. Anne Marie Albano contended that schools are the right place for kids to get treatment for social anxiety disorder. Today, Kelly Vaillancourt of the National Association of School Psychologists offers an easy way for you to advocate for school-based psychological services.

In order to make meaningful and substantial progress toward increasing access to comprehensive mental health services, we must call upon our local, state, and federal policy makers to act. We need to

educate legislators and government officials about evidence-based policies and practices

encourage them to allocate the necessary funding to ensure these practices are in places in our schools and communities.

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We know that when young people are in distress they commonly turn to friends for help and support. We decided to try to figure out how to use this idea more effectively.

The background
Central to JED’s work is our Comprehensive Approach, which includes (1) taking actions to identify those in a community who may be at risk and (2) supporting efforts to increase help-seeking among those in distress. We continuously seek to educate young people about mental health problems as well as how they can respond effectively to these problems when either they or a friend experience them. We needed answers to these questions: